


Favorite Colour

by carlyraejepsen



Series: One Kingdom Prep [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blade Runner (1982) - Freeform, Drabble, F/M, Hey Don't Worry About It Alright, Humor, Implied Romance, Implied Sexual Content, Just Watching Some Goddamn Blade Runner With My Homie, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 05:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlyraejepsen/pseuds/carlyraejepsen
Summary: Tobin and Gray take a break from their whole fighting-over-Clair thing to watch a quality movie. They find out that it's pretty hard to run away from things like this.





	Favorite Colour

“... Did Harrison Ford just shoot a real girl?” Tobin asks, earning him a groan and a hard shove against his already-sore upper arm. They’re slumped together on his living room couch, practically falling on top of each other so that they don’t get possessive over the popcorn bowl like they always do on movie nights.

“No, idiot, she was a Replicant. I swear to god, if you haven’t been paying attention—”

“But— look, she’s, like, bleeding! Isn’t she supposed to be a robot? He obviously just got the wrong girl.” Onscreen, Harrison Ford shoots the girl again, and yes, that’s _definitely_ a wounded human, no matter how bad special effects were in 1982. “Jesus, she’s not a robot! Why does he keep shooting her?”

“Replicants are flesh-and-blood organisms,” Gray says, his tone all condescending as if Tobin’s stupid for not knowing. “The only physical difference is that they were made in a lab. Like the snake, remember?”

“Wait…” Tobin squints, trying to make sense of whatever the hell’s going on now. “... Oh, man, they’re not cyborgs or anything? Crap. Now I feel bad.”

“Exactly. It makes you think, y’know? I mean, the whole movie in general is about asking, like, what is it that makes real things… _real_? Like, who's to say?" Gray stares at the screen, mesmerized. He’s apparently watched this movie hundreds of times, and yet he still seems captivated as ever. He’d gone into an outrage at lunch when Tobin confessed that he’d never seen it before. More often than not, their Movie Nights exist either as a distraction or as a chance for one to force the other to sit through whatever movie they think is important. Tonight, it's both. “Is it how they were born? Is it what material they’re made out of? Would it really be that different if they _were_ made of metal? And— and if we don’t know what dictates if something’s artificial or not, then how do we know _we’re_ real?”

“Dude, stop,” Tobin says, holding his head. “If I was high, I’d be having a meltdown at this point.”

Gray grins, the dim colors of the TV flashing on his face, glinting in his eyes and on his teeth, “I fucking love this movie,” he sighs, and Tobin just hopes all his siblings are asleep by now; Gray’s the best, but he’s an awful influence on his younger brothers, and he doesn’t want his mom to wash any more mouths out with soap than she has to. He then grabs a handful of popcorn, once again picking up the bowl and trying to move it over to his side—

“God _damn_ ,” Tobin laughs, pulling it right back between them. “You’re such a selfish prick.”

Gray huffs, “We both know you’ve had enough already. You need to start watching your figure, Tobey Maguire. You’re letting yourself go.”

“It’s my house, and it’s my goddamn popcorn bowl. I’ll eat as much as I want.”

“Well, it’s _my_ 30th-Anniversary Edition _Blade Runner_ DVD, so—”

Gray gets cut off when his phone buzzes. He clicks his tongue, shifting up so that he can pull it from his back pocket. Tobin’s attention flicks back to the film as that one Replicant guy from the beginning attempts to gouge Harrison Ford’s eyes out with his thumbs. Gray starts to lean his heavy weight onto Tobin’s side as he unlocks his phone, and his focus becomes skewed.

He tries his best to respect Gray’s privacy, but it grows more and more difficult not to look over his shoulder as Gray starts to laugh, louder and louder until he’s _giggling_ , locking his phone and holding it giddily to his chest like a schoolgirl.

“Is it Clair?” Tobin asks, knowing damn well that it’s Clair.

“She just said, ‘ _Are you alone, you idiot?_ ’ and nothing else. No smileys or anything. So vague. So cryptic.” He rubs an eye. “I love her so much.”

Tobin scoffs, looking at Gray’s phone when he opens it, reading the text for himself. He scrolls up a little, and their conversation goes on for hours, constant compliments from Gray’s end and constant insults from Clair’s. “ _Jesus_ , Gray.”

“What?”

“How do you let her _talk_ to you like that? She never says that kind of stuff to _me_.” He thinks for a moment. “Most of the time, anyway. I mean, whenever she tells me to fuck off, I fuck off, so I’m always on her good side.”

“See, that’s your problem right there,” Gray claims, putting his phone on his thigh and turning to face him. “You gotta stand your ground. Let her know you're not going anywhere. You know she likes both of us, right?”

Tobin snorts. “No way.”

“ _Yeah_ way. She wouldn’t be spending this much time on us if she didn’t want a piece of the Dream Team.”

“Are we the— we’re the Dream Team?”

“I’m trying to come up with a good name for the two of us, and it was either that or Graybin, so—” Gray shrugs exaggeratedly, and Tobin chokes on a laugh— “That’s not the point, though. The point is, Clair likes the attention. She’s totally into the idea of two guys fighting over her. So she can call me a dipshit all she wants, but I know there's no way in hell that she wants us to stop."

“Fuck, how do you even _know_ all this?”

“Alm told me. She tells Alm everything, and Alm’s hella easy to get secrets out of.”

“How?”

Gray taps the tip of his index finger to his temple. “Orange Starbursts.”

“Oh my god,” Tobin snickers, pinching the bridge of his nose. A part of him doesn’t want to believe that Clair really likes him back, and another part wants to latch onto the idea and never let go. A third part’s ready to rip Gray to shreds out of jealously. Too many goddamn parts. “You seriously bribed him with candy? Oh my _god_.”

“Hey, if the guy wants to act like a kid, then I’ll _treat_ him like a kid,” Gray smiles, calmly picking up his phone and replying to Clair’s text. “Now watch the damn movie, or else I’ll’ve wasted my evening on you for nothing.”

“... Wait, wait a sec,” Tobin nudges him, “if you know what she’s doing, then why don’t you let her know she’s been caught in the act? It’ll force her to be more nice to you. You’ll have the upper hand.”

Gray freezes for a moment. He snickers afterwards, going limp, letting his head loll back onto Tobin's shoulder. “Can you keep a secret, Torbjörn?”

“Don’t you— don’t you ever call me that shit ever again,” he says blankly, and Gray laughs all low and giddy and wonderful like always. Gray’s always making Tobin laugh doing deadpan stuff like that, so it feels great to get him back once in awhile.

“Okay, but I’m serious,” he says, still grinning, “this is some personal stuff.”

“Go ahead. I already know too much about you.”

“I just… Well, when a girl like Clair is mean to me? I like it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gray shakes his head, looking back at the TV. “I like it when a confident girl is mean to me. Not the petty insults, though— like, the real, _hard-hitting_ shit, like when Clair says I can’t control my emotions or whatever. How she’s comfortable enough with me to tell me what she really thinks, even if it’s not nice. Hell, _especially_ if it’s not nice.” Tobin stares at him to see if he’s joking, but his expression never falters. “I dunno, it gets me hot. I like it.”

Tobin doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He settles on a calm exclamation of, “You— you are a truly disgusting little man, you know that?”

Gray nods, checking his phone one more time before putting it back in his pocket. “Believe me, I’ve been made fully aware.”

“What, did Clair tell you that? Did you get off on it?”

“Probably.” When Tobin makes a noise of disapproval, Gray simply looks at him. “Hey, I’m all about honesty here.”

“Well, if I’m honest?” Tobin says, a bit of annoyance in his voice, “I don’t think things would work out between you and Clair. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s my firm belief that couples need to be _kind_ to one another.”

“No, they don’t,” Gray rolls his eyes, “They just need chemistry. Like, have you seen Celica's friends, that one pink-haired chick and her nerd-ass boyfriend? They’re always underneath the Q-Wing staircase, and they’re always either arguing like their lives depend on it or making out like they’re fucking through their clothes.”

“Sounds awful,” says Tobin.

“Sounds like a _damn good time_ ,” says Gray simultaneously.

“That's fake love, plain and simple. That on-and-off kind of thing? It's nothing but attraction. It's not real." Gray doesn't respond. "... Look, man, you need somebody who’s gonna be—”

“How do _you_ know what’s best for me, huh?”

“Because I know _you_ , dumbass. I’ve known you since we were cabbages.” The phrase makes him snort, and the anger in the air fades as quickly as it came. “You need someone who’s…”

Tobin’s distracted for a moment by a sudden change in music, a sudden increase in bad 80’s saxophone. When his eyes flit to the TV again, the hot lady Replicant from earlier is sitting solemnly at the piano in Harrison Ford’s cool detective-noir apartment. She slowly lets her dark hair out of its weird cyberpunk hairstyle, falling in lovely curls. Tobin coughs, points at the screen. “... Is he gonna have sex with that robot girl?”

“Yes, but for the last time, she’s not a robot, she’s a Repli—”

“A Republican, I got it, I got it,” he says, straightening his back a little, relishing in Gray’s laughter. “I just… I think you need somebody who’s gonna be nice to you. Somebody who’s not gonna criticize everything you do, ‘cause you’re _definitely_ not the type of person to change for others. Somebody you can talk to.” He seems to gain Gray’s attention at this point, but he keeps staring at the movie as the tension grows between Harrison Ford and Hot Brunette Android. “You need someone who’ll understand when you fuck up. And gets your sense of humor. Most importantly— somebody you can just kick it with, y’know? Like, whenever you’re with Clair, you’re always going out of your mind trying to impress her, and you can never relax. It’s like if you make one wrong move, she’ll never wanna see you again. That’s bullshit. That’s the opposite of a good relationship. Find somebody who cares if you’re happy or not. You should find someone who you can be your complete, utter, unfiltered self around, and then...”

“And then what?” Asks Gray, who is suddenly very, _very_ close to him, looking at him with something in his eyes beyond reflected TV screens.

That’s when Tobin realizes that he had just described _himself_.

There’s no need to say it out loud, because the fact is already hanging in the goddamn air, and Gray’s already so close that Tobin can smell the stupid fucking coconut conditioner he always uses. He wants to look away, but there’s some awful kind of magnetism going on where they’re both leaning into each other. He’d stop, but the music from the movie is so _sweet_ , all lovely and melodic and slow with synth and chimes, no cheesy drums in the back like these kinds of tracks usually have. His heart suddenly starts to hammer, and he feels his pulse behind his eyes. Gray has such nice eyes. _God_ , Gray’s got the most gorgeous eyes.

The moment seems to last for at least a year or two, pulling them together until Tobin’s eyes are closed and Gray has his hands in the back of Tobin’s hair, and it’d be much too weird to say anything at all. It’d be weird to do anything but kiss.

Tobin doesn’t kiss him, though, as he can't seem to find the strength in his body. He whispers, voice shaking, “... Do you like it when _I’m_ mean to you?”

“No,” Gray murmurs, “It hurts. I love it when you’re joking ‘bout it, though," he amends. "Makes it feel like you really get me.”

“... Oh,” Tobin barely manages, and Gray pushes his hair back down the middle.

“Have I ever told you,” he whispers, “that you have the most perfect, gorgeous, _magnificent_ 90’s boyband hair?”

“Yeah,” he brushes the tip of his nose against his cheek, his breath rattling in through his teeth as Gray pulls him closer in his hands, “yeah, you have, you’ve told me that—”

Gray’s phone buzzes again, and his eyes go wide— he quickly says, "I gotta take this," pushing himself all the way to the other side of the couch in an instant to pull it back out of his pocket. Tobin sighs and catches his breath, holding his chest, reveling in an incredibly strange mix of relief and disappointment.

“Sorry,” he puffs out, and Gray puts down his phone for a second.

“Sorry for what? ‘Cause nothing just happened. We didn’t do anything, and you didn’t say anything. We watched Blade Runner from a reasonable distance apart, right? That’s all we did tonight. And since that's _all_ we did, and nothing _weird_ happened, then there's nothing to apologize for.” Gray forces it all out very quickly, and Tobin can’t do anything but nod along. Harrison Ford and Hot Brunette Android are both gone, and now there’s a shot of the creepy inventor guy’s giant apartment with Hot Blonde Android instead.

“Okay. Okay,” Tobin swallows. “Did Clair text you again? What’d she say?”

“Y’know how she asked if I was alone earlier? So I told her I was with you, and then she just sent me a picture with the caption, _‘Show this to Tobin too, then’.”_

“What’s the picture of?”

“I dunno, it’s not loaded yet.” He holds his phone up a little. “Your wifi’s fuckin’ trash, dude.”

“I know, right? I hate it. It makes all my games laggy as shit. I always have to keep graphics on the lowest possible setting, and—”

Gray looks at his phone— his eyes shoot open, and he makes a noise like he’d just gotten the life choked out of him. He drops his phone flat on his stomach, face down.

“What? What is it?”

“... I just. She.” He makes this pained noise in the back of his throat, then presses his palm into his forehead.

“What’d she send?”

“Tobin,” he looks up, pushing his headband up and off, wrapping it around his wrist. “You’re eighteen, right?”

“Holy shit Gray what the _fuck_ did Clair just send you—”

“You’re _eighteen_ ,” he says, gritting his teeth and putting a comical amount of emphasis into his words, “ _right_ , Tobin?”

“You were at my fucking birthday, asshat, of _course_ I’m eighteen—”

“‘Cause I am _not_ looking to go to jail at the moment,” he warbles, opening the picture and handing him his phone and Jesus fucking _Christ_. “We’re all eighteen and everything’s legal but oh my god dude I feel like I should go to jail for seeing this shit. Oh my god. I should go to fucking _jail_.”

Clair had sent him a picture of herself that she’d taken in the mirror. She’s wearing nothing but a matching set of lace-trimmed pale blue underwear— a pale blue bralette with cups that push everything up so high that he can see God, and pale blue panties that cling to her hips like _nothing_ — and her body is _incredible_ , everything he was too ashamed to imagine and more, lovely tanned peachy skin with freckles on her shoulders and forearms, her muscles tight and toned from some combination of cheerleading and volleyball, no doubt— she’s even got tan-lines from where her running shorts end on her thighs, that’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen, that’s _adorable_ — she’s _grinning_ in the picture, too, her blonde hair cascading over shoulders in golden waves. Her hand's clasped around her caseless rose-gold phone, and her fingernails are short and manicured with neat white tips. He feels turned on and threatened and endeared all at once, and he suddenly wants to have a nice conversation with Clair over coffee more than anything else in the world—

Before Tobin can start to imagine things beside coffee, Gray snatches his phone back away to stare at the picture again, and Tobin realizes that his mouth had been hanging open.

“Just _look_ at her! Oh my _god_!” Gray nearly screams, and Tobin has to shush him before he wakes up everyone in the entire fucking house. “I wanna die,” he continues in a harsh whisper, “I love her so much, she’s so fuckin’ complicated, she’s playing so many goddamn mind games with me, dude, this is fuckin’ crazy, I’m so mad, I’m so mad, I’m so god damn mad.” He takes a quick glance at the ceiling. “I’m gonna kill myself.”

“So, the most beautiful girl in the entire world sends you half-naked pictures… and it makes you _suicidal_?” Tobin says, genuinely confused. He almost feels feverish.

Gray looks at his phone again, and something seems to click in his mind. “You’re right,” he says, laughing, sticking his phone in his pocket. “I’m not mad, I'm just horny. Be right back.” He then gets up off the couch and makes his way to the doorway—

“Where are you going? What, are you gonna go jerk it in my bedroom or something?”

“Of _course_ not, Tobin, you perverted animal,” he scoffs. “I’m gonna go jerk it in your _bathroom_ , like a _civilized_ human being.”

Gray shoots him a peace sign and dashes off into the hallway, leaving Tobin on the couch with nothing but _Blade Runner_ to keep him company.

He attempts to follow the plot for about two whole seconds before he gives up, finding it entirely too confusing without Gray there to explain it for him. He lays down on his side towards the back of the couch, entirely overwhelmed by that one “wanting to laugh/wanting to cry” feeling that keeps growing more and more familiar. He’s head-over-heels in love for two people at once, neither of whom he can have. And he almost wishes it was that fake chemistry bullshit Gray was talking about. It isn’t. There are no rough edges to it whatsoever. It’s kind love. Real love.

“ _But who’s to say what’s real and what’s not_?” asks Gray’s ever-present voice in the back of Tobin's head, reminding him again of how this whole thing is going to end out, that no matter what he does, he'll the the one left in the dust when the games are over. Tobin can’t seem to find an answer for it, so he turns back, picks up the remote, cranks up the movie's volume and drowns the voice out completely. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is self-indulgent Nonsense but i kinda wanna write a whole entire sov high school au lmao it'd be Fun. imagine how many goddam shenanigans these kids would get into


End file.
